“No, no … this is important….”

A little more distraction from the ticklish, picklish rumor cyphering and peculiar logic of the coaching search, which Auburn fans, unlike those of most other SEC schools, have never had to endure under the full, blogtastic weight of the internet.

This is what it was supposed to be like. AUTiger96 was going to weave it into his seven-in-a-row highlight montage. The eye roll in her voice, the ‘duh’ nonchalance, was going to say it all. Seven in a row. Expected. Done deal. Take it to the bank, Ol’ Blue Eyes…

Put it all on ’09 …

(and special thanks to AUTiger96 for the actual work… he only had one video this year – that says more than anything really… and though I’m still, at present, a Gill man, if it’s coaching rumor and primo rumor analysis you want, head to Jerry’s…)

4 million hits!

The brain trust at the Capstone Report have labeled us demagogues. It feels really good. And they typed “impuissance.”

Million dollar coach, million dollar band, million dollar word (used incorrectly) – Bama fans be rollin‘… out of the woodwork and into our comments! Hit after hit, comment after comment. You’d think we were giving away Sabanphetamine.

All because I said Nick Saban was their coach.

Nothing has ever generated more response.

I mean, I told them we hated them, but like ‘rtr’ pointed out, duh.

I told them that they would be cool with Nick Saban’s particular style of icing a kicker.* And they are.

I told them that they would be cool with the announcement that Nick Saban cursed his players for not running up the score enough to satisfy his ‘f—ing hatred’ of Auburn. And they are.

So what’s the big deal?

I hit ‘publish’ about 15 minutes after the game, which sadly means I had known we were going to lose for an hour or more.

Still, that post was not some teary-eyed hissy fit. (The difference between Auburn fans and Alabama fans is that we cry when we win and y’all cry when you lose. And throw bottles. And try to kill your children.)

I mean, did you read the first part?

I said Bama won. I said that it was the worst game I’d ever seen Auburn play (which is saying a lot, considering this impuissant season). It shouldn’t have been, but it was: a slaughter.

Bama fans – you won!

I didn’t expect it. It was a blow-out. 36-0.

I even told you roll tide!

So why comments like this:

hmmmm…can you say SORE LOSER! What a bunch of baloney! Give me a break, you guys win for six years in a row, can’t you just be proud of that and move on. I mean granted you haven’t won nine in a row like we did but you probably didn’t know that we won nine in a row because fans nor coaches went around holding nine fingers up, making a huge deal about it (THATS CALLED CLASS) So you had a crappy season, it happens to everybody. Yes you lost, yes you got SHUT OUT by Bama 36-0 but don’t start the mud slinging about Nick…I’m sure your wonderful Tuberville has never been obnoxious or cursed at the players or said he hated Alabama…nooooo surely not. Grow up! I don’t agree with the use of the wording he used but I’m sure he got carried away and was trying to pump his team up. But just remember this…when you lose, show your class

Pam Todd**

I’ve never been able to figure out if the lack of discernment and appreciation for context is more of a gene thing, or if checking your brain at your cheeks is just necessary to enter the cult. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

Let’s break it down.

Pam “Roll” Todd, I am not a sore loser. Sore losers go with the bottles and guns of above. After publicly ridiculing your opponent, sore losers refuse to shake the hand that blocked the punts. In response to beat downs, sore losers say Brodie things, like “if you take away that one quarter…”

And Pam, what exactly about that post is baloney? Again — Bama won. Check. Nick Saban is your coach. Check. You don’t condone ‘the use of the wording he used,’ but you’re cool with the sentiment it expressed. Check.

So where’s your beef? I’m not sure …

But thanks for your concern: I am proud of our streak. Six fingers proud. And I’m glad you bring that up, because the thumb’n'fingers raping of the Crimson “soul” lo these many years is something I’ve meant to explain since this blog began.

Alabama fans started it.

Doused-yourselves-in-gasoline-struck the match-and-called-the-flames-classless started it.

This might take a second.

I was at the 2005 Iron Bowl. Ground zero. Ground into the dirt 11 times. I didn’t see Tommy Tuberville hold up four fingers – to Auburn fans – on the way into the stadium. I was at Tiger Walk, but I didn’t see him. Neither did 99 percent of the people there. But on that first touch down, I shot four fingers up in the air without thinking. And when the 3rd quarter ticked 3-2-1, I did the same. So did all the Auburn fans around me. We smiled at each other, because this time it meant something more. “Four, four, get’em up.” We kept them up on the way out.

It wasn’t orders, it was natural.

And it was nothing new. Flip through any commemorative “First Time in Jordan-Hare” book, and you’ll see photos of the same. Before the ’89 game, after the ’89 game.

What Pam and her fellows may not realize is that “four” has special significance in the numerology of college football. Four quarters, four downs, four years (in theory) as a player*.

(You’ll note that this did not occur in, funnily enough, ’04. Three fingers would have been weird.)

Winning the 2005 game meant an entire senior class never losing to Alabama – four in a row, then still rarefied Iron Bowl air. The last time that happened was a mini-golden era for Auburn football. Holding up four fingers at the end of that game’s third quarter was a non-verbal pun for victory. It meant something deeper.

Tuberville did it because the fans were doing it. It was a salute, a high five (literally, the next year), and as classless as an index finger “#1,” which is to say, not at all.

It was chummed into scandal by Bama fan extraordinaire Paul Finebaum, and the internet, a fact I noted at the time in a story I wrote on the emerging influence of football blogs (I interviewed some dude named Orson Swindle, and this Jay Coulter guy, and there was this Auburner thing…).

The slogan “Fear The Thumb” was not pre-printed. It did not become the phenomenon we know today overnight. It was born several days after the 2005 Iron Bowl in unique reaction to the feminine hysterics elicited from Bama fans by Finebaum … and Tiger Rags pounced.

But the resulting t-shirt, now a collectors item, was not a unprovoked taunt. It was a message, a proportional response to Bama fans saying Tuberville holding up four fingers (to Auburn fans) was classless (because Paul Finebaum said it was classless). It was advice: Don’t worry about that, don’t worry about four fingers. Worry about next year. Worry about the thumb.

I have only seen Tommy Tuberville hold up four fingers, five fingers, six fingers, or seven fingers to Auburn fans, and even then, only when asked. I have never seen him or heard of him holding up four fingers, five fingers, six fingers or seven fingers to Alabama fans, except when asked to… by a (classless?) Bama fan stationed in Iraq.

So from the description of this picture, I was expecting to see a seven finger pantsing of Terrence Cody. Instead, I see only Auburn fans. You know why? Because it’s at Tiger Walk. Not midfield. Not the Bama bench. (Should he have shouted ‘we’re going to lose!?’).

Alright, that’s settled. Back to Pam.

Mudslinging? There is no mudslinging when it comes to Saban. It’s already all over the place. And there was no mudslinging in that post. Again, you’re cool with the icing technique, and that’s fine, and you’re cool with Nick Saban’s special way of “trying to pump his team up,” and that’s fine, too.

It’s just why we hate you.

I wasn’t listening to it. Gary “let them play” Danielson is a joke. I think Eli Gold would have been more objective. But my wife couldn’t stand having it muted, so she listened. I paced and blocked it out, but then, you know, she’s like “Oh my God…” and I’m like “what” and she’s like, “did you hear that?” and I’m like, “no, what?” and so she rewinds it. And she plays it. And I sit down. We play it again.

I know it was a “semi-private conversation.” I know he didn’t think anyone was listening – that’s part of what makes it so sonofamother… – though of course Tracy Wolfson said it was the loudest she’s ever heard him. And she’s been hearing him for five years.

Here’s the deal:

It’s not the implications that he was running up the score. We wouldn’t expect anything less.

It’s not that he cussed. Damn right – I loved it when Muschamp boomed! it so loud the camera mics cought it.

It’s not even that he said he cussing hated us. I doubt most coaches would have admitted that to their players, even were they to feel that way. But it’s not that.

It’s the “because.”

It’s the if / then.

It’s him cussing exhorting his players to cussing “keep playing” at 29-0 … not for themselves, not for BCS style points, not for the fun or the love of the game… but because don’t they understand how much he fucking hates us.

That’s not a motivational technique. That’s a revelation.

We’ve always known it was us against them. We’ve always known it was good vs. evil. Our way vs. their way. Right vs. wrong. But to here it so starkly articulated was genuinely chilling.

We’re different Pam, you and me. That’s all I’m saying.

See ya’ next year.

* All I could think Karate Kid 2, Karate Kid 2 – the crain kick of Florida ’07 didn’t work twice. But that meant we were going to win. Mystic drum move! It didn’t happen (but the Kodi kata of ’09!). And speaking of Karate Kid – tell me who would play Kreese, Saban or Tuberville. Exactly! That’s my whole point, Bama fans! Your coach is the bad guy in every movie! I know it, you know it, Jerry knows it. And speaking of Jerry, I honestly didn’t even see the cut block or chop block or whatever block it was during the game – must have been pacing – so I’ll let him handle damage control. But again, the thing is, with Auburn, we see that – by a player – and we go, ‘oh, no, no, no.’ Meanwhile, you see crap — from your coach — and you go ‘hell, yeah.’ If it’s a player, it’s rejectable, correctable, typically isolated. If it’s the coach, it’s systemic. You have to get on board. And you do.

** Pam was one of the first. I started with her. But then like, 15 more came, and I even deleted some… but I stuck with Pam… thanks Pam.

*** We all know the legend of Brandon Cox, but who is the “one player to ever beat Auburn” lil’ Nicky fact dropped on his way off the field? What is that — a 7th year senior?

Rest in Peace, 2008

Things will be fine in 2009.

War Eagle, myth of the rainy night. To cleave, to cleave…

$4 million dollars

Bama finally wins one. They finally win on their home field. It took a million years.

It was the worst game I’ve ever seen us play, capping one of the worst seasons.

War Eagle.

But I would rather lose every game we played, then win a single game, let alone a championship, under that man.

Alabama fans, we loathe you. We hate the sin, and we hate the sinner.

And the reason we hate you, is because you see that shite, and you cheer.

You see that kind of icing, and you justify it. Smart coach, smart.

(One of you just found this blog by Googling ‘Nick Saban’s Secret of Success.’ Good Lord… )

You hear the sideline reporter tell of little Nicky begging his team to run up the score, not for the fun of it, not even for themselves, but because ‘don’t you know how much I f—–g hate these guys?’ … and you’re cool with it.

That’s your coach.

Roll Tide.

Win

War Eagle.

The Duty

The duty of this eleven was

To put Tuscaloosa in tears.

There was Smith and Shafer and Johnny Glenn

And Brown and Williams too.

Many others with us came,

And wore the Orange and Blue

For eleven little tiger boys, lad,

For eleven little tiger boys.

Everyone’s mothers and their brothers

Just knew what they could do.

And eleven little tiger boys, lad,

Will break Tuscaloosa’s heart.

She is another that we will smother,

Before we drift apart.

The earliest surviving reference to the Auburn football team as “Tigers,” written by Walker R. Tichenor, Auburn’s quarterback, and youngest son of former Auburn president Isaac Taylor Tichenor, prior to the 1894 Auburn-Alabama game. Which we lost. But listen to the tone…

… and we were underdogs.

This Thanksgiving, I was thankful for Auburn’s genetic advantage in it’s rivalry with Alabama. Whether bringing eleven wins or eleven losses or five wins and six losses, Auburn will always enter the Iron Bowl as the underdog.

In the beginning, we owned them. When the fires of football, set by George Petrie, first engulfed the state, Tuscaloosa could but bend over before the gods of Auburn and pray for dark. Yet even then, in the bowers of innocence and conquest, the Tigers were a priori underdogs, presumed inferior, a mere college fighting… The University.

The wins came, as did the losses. The Bryant years were mostly misery. The Dye years mostly great. They’ve had a streak of nine. We’re on a streak of six. But Auburn, a tiny village, has never entered a game with Alabama, an entire state, without that Tiennamen Square middle finger and the support of heaven.

And it never will.

I often imagine the shift. What will happen? When the wins are even? When we take the lead? When our wins outnumber theirs by double digits? Triple digits?

Though we want it, though we await for it like Christ’s return, I once quietly feared that win column dominance would dull the blade that drew the nectar of ’72, of ’82, etc. I feared it would change us. But I fear no longer.

For over the course of the past six years, I have realized that the dynamic forged in the ’60s and ’70s – the wilderness of our fathers, a wilderness which our young hearts have never known, but that bore in them the hate on which we were nursed – provides them no alternative to the disgusting arrogance they’re known for.

That is who they are.

When the streak stretches to 10 … to 10 x 10 … they will bark and they will howl and they will return to their vomit. But they will never be able to tap the spirit of the underdog. It is a sixth sense kept from them by the facts of the world and by their sin.

Meanwhile, it is Auburn’s birthright. And that is why we will win the last Iron Bowl ever played, just like we won the first.

And that is why we have a much better shot of winning tomorrow than they do (and … shhhh … they’re just not that good).

And it’s why we’re better.

I quote myself:

Auburn is not pro-football, Auburn is not some damn, trendy logo team, we are Auburn University, we are Auburn, Alabama, we are the heart’s hail mary, the twice-blocked punts, we are 1989, we are 1993, we are 2004, hell, we are 1950, we are Christ-painted sunsets, we are hope in things unseen, we are Spirit – I kid you not, we are Christmas, and Coca-Cola, we are Tygers burning bright in the Forest of the Night…

It’s Americana, boys. It’s country boy goes to town.

“Always remember that Goliath was a 40-point favorite over David.” – Shug

So, gather ye freaking stones, men. Tomorrow, we ride.

War Damn Eagle. To everlasting hell with Alabama.

War Eagle Forever.

Menu (are going to win)

4 roasts
10 turkeys
3 hams
8 pans dressing
12 boxes greens
3 sweet potato souffles
24 lbs green beans
6 big bag carrots
12 lbs cranberry sauce
5 bags broccoli
1 case each strawberry cloud cake, chocolate dream cakes,
4 lemon meringue pies
4 pecan pies
320 dinner rolls
Hate

From The Gold Mine

2006

It just starts gettin’ hazy at this point in the streak… and I was even there, through the flea market of elephant porn and into the upper deck with my grandfather. But I watched the video and it comes back to me and it was fantastic and almost as good as ’05 in it’s own way.

We’re going to win.

CSJ’s Iron Bowl Vision-’OH8

Each year before the Iron Bowl, Chris Shelling Jr. has a dream. Last year’s had him stalking JP Wilson on the Tusc. campus and gifting him a pillow. Wilson, surprised, asked the reason. Shelling Jr. replied “so you can bite down on it when Quentin Groves is … “

New year, new dream. I asked him to send details as soon as possible. They came yesterday.

Not a dream. a vision. I was driving when I noticed two young lovers laying in a pile of leaves. she in orange; he in blue. At this moment, I saw it all. I’ll try to reproduce the vision with failing words:

I am an Auburn man. I have Auburn hands and Auburn feet. Auburn heart. Auburn mind. My Auburn legs propel me to the top of a giant mountain. My Auburn eyes look down and see. One side of the mountain is beauty; the other ugliness. On one side there is a shining “6″; on the other a rusty “12″. On one side there are eagles; on the other there is a dead bear. Astronauts communing with farmers here; lawyers chasing ambulances there. Pat Sullivan is beating cancer; Joe Namath and The Snake are leaving rehab. Tiger walk; Men with toilet paper and detergent boxes on their heads.

Her:

SEVEN

Him:

Auburn.

Tuscaloosa.

And on the border the unwashed masses were building a golden temple to their mercenary leader. Their newest god. More Col. Kurtz than Alexander the Great, he stood before the rabid crowd with his thuggish brigade and his Secret Service (headed by a striped man named Penn Wagers). The trailer parks had emptied, they were all here exalting with chants of “We Rollin”, “Row Tahd”,and even “Rammer Jammer”. It was a spectacle the Auburn people had grown accustomed to, but the Tuscaloosa mouth breather seemed to suffer from some amnesia (maybe it was all the Boone’s their pregnant mothers drank). No one noticed the large eared man with his knife, gun, and missile waiting in the bushes. Not to mention the other seventy or so tigers trained and aimed right at their crimson necks.
It was a bloodbath. The survivors ran back to the dead bear and dreamed of gymnastics season.

2005

The first quarter of this game was like pornography that God was cool with. Honestly, it got kinda quiet after a while. We were all just kinda lazing on the beach, or sittin’ on the dock of the bay, I guess. People were pulling out wads of cash and taking bets on whether the next play was going to be a sack. It was luxurious.

Bama was back that year, too.

“You can not play all year, you know, but you can make a big catch in the Iron Bowl and you’re going to be remembered forever in Alabama history and that’s just the way this game is. This is the game that everybody remembers.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Mr. Croyle.

My friend Charlie went to Kroger and got eleven paper grocery sacks and the ran back to Toomer’s before people really got there. He and Randy were stringing them across the intersection, but the cops put an end to it.